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Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Complicated stanza forms using rhymed counterpoint (rhymes coming at the ends of lines of different lengths—the very opposite of the royal couplet) are a challenge. The challenge is to make the thought flow through them without seeming unnatural or forced. The trick is to make the movement of the stanza just unexpected enough to make the smooth flow of the thought an accomplishment, but not enough to disrupt it. George Herbert was the great master of this technique. Let’s see what I can do with it:

George Herbert

THE COMMENDATION

(Rom. 5:8)

In all mankind no greater love can be

Than to lay down

One’s life for a good friend. But look around,

And you will see

A man, to save his spiteful enemy,

Lie down to die–

No other reason why.

And does God then commend His love in this?

While we were yet

Sinners, in our sins still firmly set,

With Judas’ kiss

Still warm on our lips and His cheek, the hiss

Still ringing, “Crucify!”

He willingly did die.

And so we hear the glorious decree,

“Reconciled!”

And I, who would have stood there and reviled,

Now on my knee

Search in vain for something that could be

A fit return

For grace I did not earn.

And I, who solely by His sacrifice

Now live,

Will never find a single thing to give

That would suffice

To pay back one ten-millionth of the price

He freely gave

To save me from the grave.

Ah, well, I must give all; my grateful heart

Could do no less.

Yet, in so doing, freely I confess

There is no part

To give He has not purchased from the start.

Before His throne,

I give Him but His own,

And worship Him for grace beyond my art

To think or tell:

By death and love a double debtor made,

I find all debts in Him forever paid.

He doeth all things well!

Remember: for more poetry like this, go to https://lanternhollow.wordpress.com/store/ and order Stars Through the Clouds! Also look for Inklings of Reality and Reflections from Plato’s Cave, Williams’ newest books from Lantern Hollow Press: Evangelical essays in pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And look for Williams’ very latest book, Deeper Magic: The Theology behind the Writings of C. S. Lewis, from Square Halo Books!

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Like George Herbert and Edward Taylor, I found the pastorate highly conducive to following the secondary calling of Poetry. Pastoral ministry rightly pursued keeps you focused on big ideas (Theology) mediated through concrete story (Scripture) and applied to the real lives of real human beings (your congregation). A number of these poems come out of that matrix. Preaching surely should be an attempt to elucidate and focus the impact of Scripture; and the distillation of that attempt can’t help but generate poetry too, in those so called.

LUKE 19:41

The crowds cried out, “Hosannah!”

As his humble mount drew near.

The waving of the branches,

The excitement of the cheers,

The strewing of their garments

Kept their thoughts from being clear;

But the Savior saw the City

And saluted it with tears.

Still they echo through the years!

Remember: for more poetry like this, go to https://lanternhollow.wordpress.com/store/ and order Stars Through the Clouds! Also look for Inklings of Reality and Reflections from Plato’s Cave, Williams’ newest books from Lantern Hollow Press: Evangelical essays in pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Anyone seeing the influence of George Herbert here gets an official brownie point.

George Herbert

The Will

When our Lord chose the Church to be his bride,
He did not chide,
But took her sins as dowry, though it bled
His heart’s blood out to bear them, and he died,
Bequeathing his estate. The will was read
And published throughout all his kingdoms wide.
“I here leave all to her whom I have wed:
Forgiveness, life, myself no longer dead,”
Was what it said.

Remember: for more poetry like this, go to https://lanternhollow.wordpress.com/store/ and order Stars Through the Clouds! Also look for Inklings of Reality and Reflections from Plato’s Cave, Williams’ newest books from Lantern Hollow Press: Evangelical essays in pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

We return after many digressions to our default setting, the Poetry blog, dropping back into that timeline in the year 1976-77, my first year as a doctoral student at the University of Georgia.

The greatest poetry collection of the 21st century

This is in some ways my most ambitious mini sonnet sequence yet—only three sonnets, but they are packed with theological and metaphysical content. I think I must have been studying the English metaphysical poets about this time: Done, Herbert, Vaughan. I try to capture some of their compact richness and profundity, but adjusted for a more modern sensibility, or at least set of questions, so that it does not become a mere pastiche. See how well you think I succeeded.

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

The poem in entry XLVII stood alone at first; but as often happens with me, it soon begat companions that coalesced to form a larger group. Terza Rima is the form Dante used in The Divine Comedy. The lines come in triplets rhyming ABA BCB CDC, etc., until all ends in a couplet.